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Souvenir T-shirts picturing the aftermath of the assassination attempt on former US president Donald Trump have already gone on sale.
The T-shirts use an image of a defiant Trump raising his fist into the air as Secret Service officers try to safely move him off the stage. The former president narrowly escaped being killed after a bullet hit his ear at the rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday.
The assassination attempt took place at around 6.15pm local time, with photos of Trump’s recovery being published minutes later. Mere hours later, T-shirts with variations of the historic image have gone on sale from outlets based in the US and China.
By around 8pm on Saturday some Chinese manufacturers had already put the iconic photo onto T-shirts, according to the South China Morning Post.
The first batch reportedly went on sale on Taobao, a Chinese e-commerce platform, at 8.40pm. One of the Taobao sellers, Li Jinwei, told the Hong-Kong based newspaper: “We put the T-shirts on Taobao as soon as we saw the news about the shooting, though we hadn’t even printed them, and within three hours we saw more than 2,000 orders from both China and the US.”
Li told reporters that for this year’s US presidential election they had only made souvenirs of Trump because he was more popular.
Follow The Independent’s live reporting following the attempted assassination of Donald Trump
Potoshirt, an online store for trending T-shirts which is based in the US, was also advertising defiant Trump assassination T-shirts on social media on Sunday morning.
One product, which was on sale for $22.95, had a shot of a bloodied Trump raising his fist in defiance with the words “you can’t kill Trump” above the image.
Another T-shirt, on sale for the same price, used the full image of the former president surrounded by security personnel, with the line “if you come at the king you best not miss” underneath the photo.
TeePublic, an online marketplace that allows creators to see their products, was also showing commemorative clothing for sale on Sunday morning.
The site was selling the signature image of Trump thrusting his hand into the air after the attack on tank tops, hoodies, crewneck sweatshirts, and baseball shirts.
One seller on online shop Etsy, who was based in Colorado in the US, had the same image on a white T-shirt, listed for £18.28 as “Donald Trump Assassination Attempt Shirt”. Another similar product was listed as “Trump Bloody Ear.”
